During a recent descent into Wikipedia, I ran across this succinct description of Marxism:
The first volume of Marx's major work, Das Kapital, was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labor that went into its production. This contrasts with the modern understanding that the value of a thing is determined by what one is willing to give up to obtain the thing.
So it caught my ear when in this interview
Jon Stewart says, "When are we going to realize in this country that our wealth is work. . .that we're workers?"
Wouldn't the answer be, "we realized it in 1867, but a lot of people have changed their minds about that idea since then?"
allusive of, but not actually commie
I think Jon is just referring to "human capital," which is typically excluded from a nation's "wealth" [1]. My impression is that Jon Stewart feels that excluding human capital from our nation's wealth has had negative effects for laborers. More to the point, however, is that these are merely side effects and it isn't necessary to jump ship and start de-privatizing everything.
His main point in the interview seems to be corporate accountability, specifically the press's role in providing accountability, not the actual existence of corporations or the capitalist system on which they're founded. I have no idea if Jon Stewart is advocating changing the way we define GNP or other measures of a nation's wealth, so much as pointing out that is shortsighted to de-emphasize the role of labor in a nation's wealth. If we exploit and misuse our labor force we run the risk of significantly diminishing its productive capacity which will _directly_ affect our nation's wealth [2]. At that point the connection between wealth and labor will be obvious. I think Jon Stewart is just trying to be a little more foresighted and make that connection before we've destroyed our labor base. Increasing accountability will serve to prevent situations such as a head of household losing their pension and having live off of their children's college fund.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_(economics)
[2] It takes a monetary catalyst (e.g. tuition) to become a skilled laborer. We only have as many skilled laborers as there are individuals who can afford and see a favorable cost/benefit ratio for training.
maybe "marxist" would have been more accurate
Jim, I agree with you 100% about education.
I'm also convinced by Jon Stewart's arguments about the poor quality of CNBC's journalism—an easy sell since all I've seen of CNBC was on The Daily Show.
Isn't the accountability problem much more fundamental? Stewart asked if CNBC is accountable to "the Wall Street traders" or "the people and the 401(k)s and the pensions." But by design, it is accountable to NBC/Uni shareholders, and indirectly to its advertisers and other sources of revenue.
I want to address your points about labor being mis-valued, but I don't feel I know enough. We do already have pro-labor facets to our system, like strong labor unions, progressive income tax, and minimum wage laws. We also have pro-capital facets, like low capital gains tax.
I don't follow the step you take from increasing accountability to pensions being safer. I wonder if your example pensioner's kids' college fund wouldn't better be helped by increasing the average U.S. savings rate or changing cultural norms about education?